Three Methods of Ostensibly Legal Electoral Manipulation in Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes
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Political actors in today’s autocracies and emerging democracies often use ostensibly legal means to sideline the opposition, confuse voters, and create a false impression of their own popularity. However, there is no systematic work on how voters respond to these tactics and why. This dissertation addresses this research gap by focusing on three practices: electoral exclusions of opposition candidates under believable pretexts; pro-government rallies; and candidate cloning, which aims to confuse voters by presenting them with doubles of serious candidates (co-authored chapter). Conclusions are drawn from original survey experimental evidence collected in Russia, as well as electoral, biographical, and other data from Ukraine. The findings indicate that these tactics have largely been ineffective or are successful only under certain conditions. In Ukraine, clone candidates have rarely deprived targeted politicians of victories, with only a few factors, such as ballot positioning, explaining their performance. Meanwhile, in Russia, voters tend to see pro-government rallies as perfunctory events and are less likely to overlook the exclusion of opposition candidates when these candidates are perceived to be popular. Importantly, the findings also suggest that access to trustworthy information can help voters, even strong regime supporters in autocracies, discern electoral manipulation.
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